Learn how Irmgard Bergmann, one of MBS Academy's Trainers, came to study Mind Body Studies, how she has incorporated this work into her profession as a midwife in Germany, and her experience in learning and teaching MBS.

What first drew you to Mind Body Studies?

I had a horse who was very nervous, so I took a seminar with Linda Telington-Jones. In the seminar, we also felt how the Feldenkrais Method works, doing a lesson with "the four points". I remember standing on my hands and knees and lying down and standing back up, and thinking that it was boring. (Of course, now I understand why we were doing what we did!) But, I tried a class once more. This time, it was very interesting for me. I remember that someone said, “After this half hour, I can move without a pain that I had had for fifteen years.” That impressed me.

A conversation with MBS Academy student, Suzy van Eijs

New mother and current student in the MBS Academy Foundation Training, Suzy van Eijs describes her experiences during and since her pregnancy – during training and at home, on the floor and on the go, her daughter Eydie in her arms.

Last Saturday, Suzy found a couple hours to chat with us while Eydie lay down for an afternoon nap. Soon enough, Momma would be up and running one more, baking some bread and on call for an energetic one-year-old to tug at her arms again in pursuit of the latest fascination: walking. For the moment, though, Suzy got to reflect a bit on her training with MBS, on motherhood, and on how the two have intersected.

“The thing I would say about pregnancy is that it’s just for such a short period of time. When you’re in it, it’s so huge, but before you know it, it’s over, and you can’t get back to it.” Of course, one can become pregnant again, but Suzy stresses the preciousness of each individual experience – as that experience. Her distinction recalls Mia’s encouragement throughout past seminars to give our full attention to each particular movement as it happens, instead of recalling something from the past or anticipating what will happen next.

Of her training with MBS, Suzy notes, “I think that might be a thing that this work has made me realize more: sticking in the moment, enjoying the moment.” It doesn’t end with pregnancy, of course. She adds, “Also now, if I hear friends saying, ‘Maybe Eydie will be able to walk in a month,’ I don’t really even think about that. I enjoy now, what’s happening now.”

As it turns out, Eydie offers the same lesson on the richness of slowing down and paying attention to right now. “Babies, that’s their life. They don’t think about ‘Oh, maybe later.’” With a laugh, Suzy spells out just how Eydie prefers to get the message across: crying. Loudly. And, the most wondrous part, Suzy is generally glad for the reminder.

“I think that might be a thing that this work has made me realize more: sticking in the moment, enjoying the moment.”

A conversation with MBS Academy Student, Ewa Ławreszuk

This past year, the MBS roster has included some healthy and happy, flexible-bodied and flexible-minded new mothers. Throughout the latter half of 2012, students in both the Foundation and Post-Graduate courses had the great opportunity to listen to new babies’ laughter and watch their exploratory movements right alongside the classes’ own investigations. In this two-part blog series, the new moms share their experiences of participating in the MBS program during their first-time pregnancies.

“You know, the first pregnancy is changing a lot in movement: the position of the pelvis and the lower back… to sit down, sit up, put on shoes.” For years, Ewa Ławreszuk has been developing her bodily awareness through her continuing study with MBS Academy and through her own practice as a Feldenkrais Method ® and Bones for Life ® Practitioner. During each stage of her pregnancy and now in motherhood, Ewa has been able to use the grounded, simple strategies she’s learned to respond to changing circumstances with flexibility and awareness. While many students who come to MBS are motivated by an accident or a decline in health to take a closer look at how they organize their bodies, as any pregnant mother can attest, drastic change can also be a natural, positive and quite useful part of human development – throughout life.

“I do not know how to write it to you in English” she modestly explains, having written professionally for years in her native Polish, “but that was something – that my body was wholly integrated in the movements and posture of the pregnancy.” One happy side effect of becoming so fully integrated, Ewa discovered that persistent pains and tensions disappeared, and didn’t come back. In June of 2012, five months pregnant, she spent three full weeks in Bad Toelz, attending both the Foundation and the Post-Graduate Seminars. “I had a pain in the lower back when I arrived that disappeared after two days and never came back.”